Pelopidas and Epaminondas were both descended from ancient and worthy families. Pelopidas inherited a large fortune, which he enjoyed with honour to himself and utility to his friends, and by avoiding the two extremes of avarice and dissipation, showed that he was the master of, not the slave to riches. The patrimony of Epaminondas on the contrary was extremely small, yet equal to his utmost wants or desires. Devoted wholly to the sciences and the study of history and philosophy, which mend the heart, whilst they instruct the head, he preferred the sweets of retirement and study to a life of pleasure and ostentation. He avoided all lucrative employments and state honours, with as much assiduity, as they were courted and intrigued for by others: nor did he accept of the highest office in the state, until he was called to it by the united cry of the people, and the exigencies of the publick. When dragged out of his retirement, and placed by force, as it were, at the head of affairs, he convinced his countrymen, as Justin informs us, that he was fully equal to the task, and seemed rather to give lustre to, than receive any from the dignity of his employment.[193] He excelled in the art of speaking, and was the most consummate orator of his time; persuasion hung upon his tongue, and he was the master of the passions of his auditors by his eloquence, and of his own by philosophy. With this truly great man Pelopidas was joined as colleague, who, when he could not prevail upon his friend Epaminondas to share the enjoyment of his own fortune with him, copied him in the humble virtues of private life. Thus both became the admiration of their countrymen for their temperance and moderation, as well as their plainness in dress; and frugality at their table. But the most striking part of their character, was that unexampled union and perfect harmony which subsisted between these two great men, and ended only with their lives. They filled at one and the same time the two highest posts in the state. The whole management of publick affairs was intrusted to their conduct, and all business passed through their hands. Yet during all that time, no latent spark of envy, jealousy or ambition, no private or selfish views or difference of sentiments (the fatal, but too general sources of disunion amongst statesmen) could in the least affect their friendship, or ever make any impression upon an union, which was founded upon the immovable basis of publick virtue. Animated, as Plutarch observes, and directing all their actions by this principle only, they had no other in view but that of the publick; and instead of enriching or aggrandizing their own families, the only emulation between them was, which should contribute most to the advancement of the dignity and happiness of his country. To crown all, they both died gloriously in defence of that independency, which they had acquired and preserved to the state, and left the Thebans free, great, and flourishing.
It is natural to think, that men of such superior merit, and so eminently disinterested, could never possibly be the objects of party resentment. Yet we are assured in history, that they were frequently persecuted by a virulent faction composed of the selfish, those leeches whom these two virtuous men prevented from fattening upon the blood of the publick, and of the envious, from that strong antipathy which bad men naturally bear to the good.[194] For envy, that passion of low uncultivated minds, has a greater share in party opposition than we are apt to imagine. A truth of which we have strong proof in that celebrated passage, recorded by Plutarch,[195] between Aristides and the Athenian countrymen. Though the virtue of these great men triumphed over all the malicious efforts of these domestick enemies; yet they had power enough at one time to impeach and bring them both to a publick trial for a breach of formality relative to their office, though that very act had enabled them to render the most signal services to their country.[196] They were tried however, but honourably acquitted. At another time, whilst Pelopidas was detained prisoner by Alexander the Pherean, this malignant faction had weight enough to exclude Epaminondas from the office of polemarque or general, and to procure for two of their friends, the command of that army which was sent to punish the tyrant for his treachery. But the new generals made such wretched work of it, when they came to face the enemy, that the whole army was quickly thrown into the utmost confusion, and compelled for their own preservation, to put Epaminondas at their head, who was present at the action only as a volunteer: for the malice of his enemies had excluded him from the least shadow of trust or power. This able man, by a manœuvre peculiar to himself, extricated the Theban troops out of those difficulties in which the ignorance and incapacity of their generals had involved them, repulsed the enemy, and by a fine retreat brought the army safe to Thebes. His countrymen, now sensible of their error, and how greatly they had been imposed upon by the faction, immediately recalled him to the highest offices in the state, which he continued to execute until his death, with the greatest honour to himself, and emolument, as well as glory, to his country. As the management of publick affairs, after the death of these two illustrious patriots fell by the intrigues of faction, into the hands of men of a quite different character, we need not wonder that the Thebans sunk alike in power and reputation until Thebes itself was totally destroyed by Alexander the Great, and their country, with the rest of Greece, swallowed up at last by the insatiable ambition of the Romans.
CHAPTER IV.
OF CARTHAGE.
Of all the free states whose memory is preserved to us in history, Carthage bears the nearest resemblance to Britain, both in her commerce, opulence, sovereignty of the sea, and her method of carrying on her land wars by foreign mercenaries. If to these we add the vicinity of the Carthaginians to the Romans, the most formidable and most rapacious people at that time in Europe, and the specifick difference, as I may term it, of the respective military force of each nation, the situation of Carthage with respect to Rome, seems greatly analogous to that of Britain with respect to France, at least for this last century. Consequently, the dreadful fate of that republick, once the most flourishing state in the universe, and the most formidable rival Rome ever had to cope with, must merit our highest attention at this juncture: both as the greatness of her power arose from, and was supported by commerce, and as she owed her ruin more to her own intestine divisions, than to the arms of the Romans.
We know very little of this opulent and powerful people until the time of the first Punick war. For as not one of their own historians has reached our times, we have no accounts of them but what are transmitted to us by their enemies. Such writers consequently deserve little credit, as well from their ignorance of the Carthaginian constitution, as their inveterate prejudice against that great people. Hence it is that we know so little of their laws, and have but an imperfect idea of their constitutional form of government.
The government of Carthage, if we may credit the judicious Aristotle, seems to have been founded on the wisest maxim of policy. For he affirms, the different branches of their legislature were so exactly balanced,[197] that for the space of five hundred years, from the commencement of the republick down to his time, the repose of Carthage had never been disturbed by any considerable sedition, or her liberty invaded by any single tyrant: the two fatal evils to which every republican government is daily liable, from the very nature of their constitution. An additional proof too may be drawn from this consideration, that Carthage was able to support herself upwards of seven hundred years in opulence and splendour in the midst of so many powerful enemies, and during the greater part of that time, was the centre of commerce of the known world, and enjoyed the uninterrupted sovereignty of the sea without a rival.